How the New Trends in Online Dating Will Help You Find Love in 2017

December 14, 2016

By Top10BestDatingSites Staff

Would it make you feel old if you were told that the first online dating site, match.com is now two decades old?

20 years of online dating probably means that most people using dating apps and dating websites hardly remember the world without it. But if 2016 has shown us anything, it's that we live in an ever-changing world. Match.com is a far cry from the simple personals site it was in 1997.

Here are the hottest trends to look out for if you're looking to get up close and personal online in 2017.

A Snap Decision

If you’re interested in getting ahead of the 2017 trends, think about the most important element of online dating. It’s got to be photos, with swiping tools the most common dating apps found on mobile phones. Any dating site worth your attention will tell you that a good photo or two will more than triple the interest you get.

Personal stylist Chantelle Znideric agrees. "In the past, first impressions were made on the first date, whereas these days potential partners are making snap decisions with every swipe, based on two or three images."

Even sites which have ‘eliminated the swipe’ will say that they are going for an experience more like Instagram, which is wholly centred around images showing your personality and lifestyle.

Take a good hard look at your photos and see if they need some refreshing for 2017. Here are just a few of the things which have bothered online dating users in 2016.

Bathroom selfies. Don't all phones have a front facing camera now? Why are we still looking at these weird half reflected images of people trying to keep a neutral face while they snap themselves in the mirror?

All a bathroom selfie tells other singles is that you couldn’t find a friend to take a half-decent pic of you. And please, at the very least-give the mirror a wipe and put the seat down.

Hiking photos. Maybe it’s just that they’ve become a massive cliché, but we’ve had quite enough of over-active singles with panoramic landscape views of unknown vistas.

Don’t you live in Manhattan anyway?

Hiking pics are out, try something original for 2017.

Thirst traps. These pretty much just make us cringe. We all want to look our best in our profile pics, but there’s no need to pretend you’re attempting anything else. Smart and sexy photos speak for themselves, without the need for a fake misdirect.

Switching Casual for Commitment

The rise of casual dating apps has created a whole lot of fun. But dating experts seem to be pretty sure that as we start 2017 a lot of people are done sowing their wild oats, and are ready to take a turn towards commitment.

Writing for Bustle, therapist Dr Wendy O’Connor champions this prediction. "More singles [are] burned out [and] want more, deeper meaningful connections. Having sex and getting naked with someone is easy, sitting down for a cup of coffee and having an intimate discussion — that's the hard part.”

As singles start taking online dating more seriously, there are a few ways that sites will follow suit.

Security is a big one. 57% of women report feeling harassed online, with the top offending site being Tinder. 1/3 of singles who are signed up to online dating sites have never actually used it to plan an offline date. More shocking still, some studies have shown that more than a quarter of people who have dating apps on their phones are quite happily coupled up already. 2017’s most successful dating apps and websites will be thinking of ways to make dating safer and more effective for singles.

Swiping tools may also be on the way out, as they don’t exactly scream ‘long-term relationship.’ In fact, the entire Hinge redesign is all about remedying this problem. A recent hinge study exposed powerful stats such as “54% of singles on Hinge report feeling lonely after swiping on swiping apps.”

Singles want more, and that includes better scanning and vetting of members, and more information and context about the people they are chatting to. Members signing up to paid subscriptions might also be on the rise, as for most singles these elements are worth putting your hand in your wallet for.

The Match of Your Dreams, Literally.

If Bustle are correct, and the focus of online dating is going to move towards love and marriage, commitment experts eHarmony are the right people to ask about the trends to expect in 2017 and beyond.

You might already think online dating is pretty reliant on technology, but eHarmony thinks we're only scratching the surface of what technology can do for our dating lives.

eHarmony use an intensive questionnaire to figure out compatibility, but knowing that subjective questions and answers aren’t exactly fool-proof, they are already thinking about a future where your smart technology and wearables do all the hard work for you.

Take smart watches for example. If you've got into the habit of waking up in the morning and checking how productive your night’s sleep is, or congratulating yourself on meeting today's step goal, your fave dating site might soon be using this data to match you better. Imagine if your dating site could find you someone who values the importance of silence before coffee in the morning just as much as you do, all thanks to your sleep data. Not so crazy now, eh?

Syncing online dating with data from social media, wearables and even smart home technology is the direction experts are predicting dating apps and sites will take in the next decade.

With access to all of this, eHarmony are pretty confident that their algorithms could get even more successful. "Proﬁle building could be instantaneous, matching far more accurate, and the data on the two peoples’ compatibility could even be used to suggest great locations for shared experiences or mutually-compelling topics of conversation."

Wow, and here we are still attempting to set our microwave clock back an hour for daylight savings.

About Top10BestDatingSites Staff

The Top 10 Best Dating Sites staff are your guides to the world of online dating websites and services. The team navigates the world of online dating and share their findings to help readers find online dating success. Our team includes dating experts Laurel House, Ken Solin, James Preece, Erika Ettin, Nida Sea, Vanae Tran, Carmelia Ray and many more talented writers. Top 10 Best Dating Sites staff have extensive first-hand experience in: signing up for and using various online dating sites; researching the ever-growing online dating market; and copywriting and editing for various online and print publications about online dating.